Claim
by Trogdor19
Summary: Carol runs into Daryl when he's with Joe's group of claimers. He's forced to lay claim, but when they go off on their own, Carol takes the reins and goes after something she's always wanted. Daryl has no idea how to handle this new development. This follows all the awkwardness, sweetness and missteps of the early days of their relationship. Takes off from late Season 4
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This takes off from canon after episode 4x15 "Us". Daryl's lost Beth and temporarily joined up with the group of bad guys for lack of anything better to do. Carol has been traveling with Tyreese and Mika and Lizzie are dead. Though I'm going to say Baby Judith was with someone else, not Carol and Tyreese, just for simplicity's sake. This fic is all about fluff and romance and getting Carol and Daryl together, because I'm starting to doubt the show is ever going to get around to that._

 _Disclaimer: In the Daryl POV scenes, the language and a lot of the content is very course, as reflects his upbringing. Trigger warning to brief discussion of sexual assault for just this chapter, nothing graphic. Fic rated M for language and later sexual content.  
_

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

Town was quiet, leaves sullenly motionless in the street, like corpses of summers past. Only broken windows and urgent graffiti messages left for somebody probably long since dead marked it as real and not a movie set. Or one of those dreams Daryl had where he woke up and his group was gone and he was the last one left alive, anywhere.

"I'm telling you, there's a woman around here. In that same house where the guy was hiding, there was a freshly washed shirt. A _girl's_ shirt."

"Hell, it was probably just yours, Jimmy. You did wear that girl's hat last winter."

"It was cold. Now shut up about the fucking hat and keep your eyes peeled. You want a woman or you want me to knock your teeth all the way down into your liver?"

Daryl tuned them out. This group of guys was always jabbering, dick measuring, never had anything to say. He was starting to think he'd rather take his chances on the walkers alone than keep listening to them.

After he lost Beth, he needed a group. And this one looked like the butt-ugly face of fate itself, because that was exactly what he needed: A few days with guys like himself to straighten him out. Remind him who he was, where he came from. Wash the memory of hopeful blue eyes out of his brain, and all the times he proved her wrong. Besides, he couldn't stand his own thoughts rattling so loud around his mind anymore.

Only thing was, he wasn't keen on the idea of finding the woman they were always talking about. He didn't want to see what they'd do with one, and there were too many of them for him to start a fight he could win.

Merle always said a rough ride didn't do a girl no harm. No more than a little beat down ever harmed him. Mop up the blood, bruises disappeared after a few days. Why would girls be any different?

He never could say why they were different, but it made him feel a little sick, thinking about it.

Why would you want to fuck a girl who didn't want you, anyway? He couldn't imagine anything that'd make you feel less like a man. Like trying to be friends with somebody who thought you were dumb, or something. Make you feel worse than having no friends a'tall.

"Look, just one more lap through the streets and if we don't find her, then—"

They turned a corner and because Daryl was up front, he saw her first. It was a woman, all right. It was Carol.

The second he recognized her, some kind of white-hot frenzy blazed up from his gut. The word punched out of him like it had been there all along.

" _Claim_."

He'd been refusing to say that word for days but there was no hesitation in him now. Maybe he was really part of the group now, as lawless and rough as he'd always been, underneath. Beth wouldn't recognize him now, dirt black with blood under his fingernails, claiming a woman like she was half a rabbit carcass.

But even while the word still rang in the air, he realized there was an echo to it. One of the other guys said it at the same time, maybe more.

Two men stepped forward and one dropped his pack. The ugly one with the blood red speck in his right brown eye.

"Well," Joe drawled, the roses on his black shirt catching Daryl's eye as he stepped forward. "When three men lay claim at the same time, they got—"

The fire in his gut flamed up. He knew what had to be done when three men laid claim at the same time. He whipped his bow off his back, and the sturdy butt of it crashed into Ugly's windpipe. Blood sprayed and when he hit the familiar resistance of unrotted bone, he knew he'd hit hard enough. He kicked out the guy's kneecap with a disgusting snap and took him to the ground, the crossbow squashing his cheekbone, teeth spraying out across the dirt.

Daryl threw down the crossbow and took out the other cheekbone with his fist, his knuckles solid and throbbing for something more to hit. Then his brain clicked over and he remembered not to get winded because he had more of a fight still ahead of him. He bounced to his feet, keeping his back to Carol and Tyreese but not one of those shitbags had a gun raised. The rules held firm.

Daryl wiped a chunk of something wet away from his eye, staring at the other guy who'd yelled claim. That one was the tallest in the group, but he took one step back, then two, shaking his head.

"I'm going." Daryl snatched his crossbow up, his bag. Ugly was a corpse. Not just beaten, but dead, and his head messed up bad enough he wouldn't need killing twice.

He stalked toward the forest behind Carol. She had her left hand on a big, worn knife at her hip, right on a cocked gun held down at her side, but she didn't turn to go with him.

"Wait," she said.

His chin jerked up and he flipped sweaty hair back from his eyes. Didn't she know he meant for her and Tyreese to come, too? They were from the prison. From the quarry camp. She think because he was running around with these shitbags, he was their people, not hers?

Then again, he'd thought that for a minute himself.

But she was staring at him, steady like she always was, but her eyes a little wide, a little shocky. Suddenly, he could feel the grit and sweat between his palm and the trash bag he was carrying with almost nothing in it. The layers of gore painting the crossbow slung across his back with his three puny arrows in it. Maybe she didn't want to go into the forest with a dirty redneck who only had three arrows to his name.

Maybe she didn't like being claimed by the likes of him.

He almost left. Fuck, he didn't need nobody. He damn sure wasn't gonna beg a woman to camp with him. If the group behind him had been any other group of humans left in this godforsaken world, he woulda gone. But not these assholes.

He spit, because he could taste blood in his mouth and he knew it wasn't his. "Come _on_ ," he growled. She'd heard that tone from him a hundred times. She oughta know when he wasn't messing around.

"We dodged a herd, a couple hours back," she said in a low tone, just for him and Tyreese to hear. "Maybe we'd be safer traveling together, just for a little while."

His eyes bulged and he ducked his head against the shoulder of his vest. Something was dripping into his eyes. Moisture slid slimy between his face and the leather, something squishier, too. Brains. Fresher than the usual kind he had on him, too.

"You see what just happened?" he bit off. He beat a man to death in less than a minute. She think he did that for no good reason?

He started walking and she still didn't follow.

Electricity was bolting through him so fast his hair all but stood up. Tyreese took a step to go with him, then glanced at Carol and subsided, like he was her puppy or something. He didn't even have a gun, just a long-ass hammer. What were they to each other, now? How long'd they been alone in the woods together? Not only that, how'd pussy ass Tyreese find her when Daryl hadn't so much as cut her path? He'd been looking.

He'd been ready to throw down and leave the prison to haul her back, force her down Rick's throat just like he forced Merle. But then the governor came and it all went to shit.

But as soon as him and Beth had stopped running, he'd been looking. He knew how Carol walked, knew how her stride had lengthened out a few months after her husband died in that first camp. Knew how she had narrow feet and a deep, confident heel strike now. Always lifted her feet up high so she didn't ruffle the leaves and make too much noise.

And yet fucking _Tyreese_ found her first, and now she wanted to stay with the dirtiest bunch of sons of bitches he'd seen since the end of the world.

"Fine," he spat out and kept on going.

"If you're not going to take your claim," Joe commented, "then it goes to the second in line."

He whipped around and went back for her.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Carol said, and her gun started to come up.

Shit, if she even pointed that, they'd shoot her. In an arm or a leg, so they could still have their fun. He grabbed her gun arm and shook her. Hard enough to make her head snap back on her neck, the way he'd seen her husband do a dozen times.

She gasped and her eyes dilated. Just for a second, she froze up.

Daryl hadn't seen her hesitate for a long time. But he was off before she recovered, dragging her so she stumbled along behind him, that crisp heel strike lost as she struggled to keep up with his longer legs.

"Hey!" Tyreese bit out. "The fuck you think you're doing, man?" He came after him with the hammer half-raised and Daryl didn't even look up. Twenty more strides to the trees. Every inch of his back felt tender, waiting for a bullet to strike it. He didn't know how far rules applied when you left the merry little group. But he also knew how guys like this worked, and if you acted like your ass could be kicked, sure as shit it would be. So he didn't look back.

The leader shouted something after him. He shoved Carol in front of him, and adrenaline pumped so hot through his ears that he couldn't hear a thing but his own death bearing down on him, panting like a hungry mouth with breath like rotting meat and piss.

They passed the first trunk of a tree, the second. Every inch of woods closing around them another bit that could catch a bullet before their bodies did. Carol started to turn to confront him and he pushed her harder, knocking her off balance and then hauling her back up to her feet to keep her going.

"Carol?" Tyreese sounded confused now, like a kid playing a new game he didn't get.

"Move your ass," Daryl hissed, and now that he didn't have to play alpha dog, he started watching their backs. The group was still there, still out in the open. He headed toward a little drop in the hillside, and as soon as they were low enough in the streambed to be out of sight, he broke into a jog.

" _Run_ ," he said.

Carol ripped her arm out of his hand with a glare, holstered her gun, and with a quick glance at the forest, took off in the direction that gave them the most cover.

He damn near smiled. Instead, he grabbed her elbow and guided her onto the rocks of a dry stream. Up the rocks with Tyreese puffing along behind, then across a fallen log. Two logs, three, careful not to scuff the bark.

"There." He could see the tower of a town in the distance. Towns meant walkers, but they also meant asphalt. Harder to leave a trail on pavement.

"Which way was that herd?"

"South," she said.

"Moving?"

"East."

He corrected their coarse and kept running. When Carol started to lag, he went back, ripped her bag off her arms and shouldered it, pulling his crossbow around to one side.

He pushed them faster. Through the town, on the rails of a railroad track and then—yes!—a stream. He vaulted right off the bridge and into the water.

"What the hell you doing?" Tyreese burst out. "It's cold! And why we running from these guys, if you were traveling with them?"

Carol jumped down off the bridge but when he started to move, she grabbed his arm. "Claim. That's the word you said, wasn't it?" Her eyes narrowed on his face.

"Doesn't mean nothin'." He scooped some water out of the stream, splashed it over his face, his hair. Droplets ran gray and pink off his hand, so he did it again.

"The hell it doesn't." She shoved him with both fists, her knuckles planting hard into his chest. "Don't you ever lay hands on me like that again, you hear me? What's gotten into you?"

He palmed his hair out of his eyes, still smelling blood. "You wanna see who's worse, me or them? Be my guest."

She hadn't been moving and in another second, Joe would have jumped in, nullifying the claim and playing the gentleman saving the lady from a man she didn't want to go with. He liked that kind of shit. And when he was done playing the gentleman, he would have tossed her to his buddies.

Daryl's stomach clenched and the trees whirled in his vision. He hadn't ate in a long time. He should find them some food, but they needed to get hell and gone from here. That rose-shirted fucker could track and Daryl had the one thing for a hundred miles he wanted: a woman.

"You knew exactly what you were doing." She shoved him again. "Bad enough that you'd do that to a woman, Daryl Dixon, but you did it on purpose because you knew how to scare me." She planted her feet amongst the rocks of the stream. "I decide who I travel with, not you."

He took off her backpack and shoved it at her. It was heavy enough to make his arms shake, that's how weak he was. He pushed it into her chest so she wouldn't see. There were cans of food in there, he could feel 'em rolling around. His stomach cramped and he glared at her through the wet strands of hair dripping pink water into his eyes. "Decide then. Do it fast, because they've got trackers."

She stared at him. Mad, concerned, a little confused. But then she softened, like she could see something about him he was pretty sure was only in her imagination. He looked away, and slung the backpack onto his shoulder.

"Fine then. We been dicking around long enough. Let's go."

"Are they all gone, then?" she said. "Rick? Carl? Everyone from the prison?"

"I found Mika's shoe. That's all that was left of her." He stared at the water that was taking all the burn out of his sore feet and making them numb. He wanted to say he was sorry, but it wouldn't come out. Would have sounded stupid anyway.

"She didn't die by the tracks." Carol's voice went blank, and he looked up without thinking and wished he hadn't when her face twisted. "Lizzie killed her."

"Shit," he whispered. "After she turned?"

"No. Before." And Carol started to cry.

He flinched. Way down deep in his chest.

"Wasn't nothing we could have done," Tyreese said and started to climb down from the bridge. Daryl wanted to punch him just for knowing so much better what to do for a woman in a moment like this.

He reached out and patted Carol's shoulder. It was both smaller and harder than he thought it would be. He didn't know why he did it, except maybe that Tyreese was probably about to and he didn't want to see the other man touching her.

But that just made her cry harder. He snatched his hand away, but it was too late. Her shoulders crumbled and she started to shake, her sobs growing audible. A walker moving through the trees veered their way. Maybe he should go take care of that, give Carol a moment to pull herself together.

Wasn't right, her losing those kids. Not after Sophia.

She lurched forward and he caught her in one arm, not realizing until she started to squeeze that she was hugging him. He tightened his grip a little, swallowing. He was bad at hugs. Always felt too bony and his arm ended up in the wrong place, usually. But she buried her face in the leather of his vest.

"I shot her," she gasped. "I told her to look at the goddamn flowers and I shot her in the goddamn back of the head. A child. A child just like Sophia."

He put his other arm around her, his hand clasping the back of her head. "All right," he said, acknowledging it. "You did what had to be done." He remembered Merle's milky eyes, teeth opened wide as he came for his last living kin.

Tyreese moved off, hammer raised, to take care of that lone walker. And Carol didn't let go, so neither did Daryl, even though his bow was digging into his ribs and his stomach wouldn't stop growling and he'd dropped his garbage bag in the water.

He held her and she cried, and the stream swirled around both their legs until they were numb to the knees. It was the most alive he'd felt in weeks.

* * *

 _Author's Note: I have no idea how long this fic is going to be. I usually don't post until everything's all written, but I really want to share this one, and I've never left a fanfic unfinished in my life, so use that follow button without fear, folks. I just keep thinking of more cute moments I want to include, so I keep adding chapters._

 _But stick around, because Carol's big move is coming up in the next chapter, and I promise Caryl fans are going to love it._

 _Also, please be aware that I'm in my first watch through of the series, so I won't be aware of any details revealed after 5x01 or anything gleaned from cast interviews, as I've been avoiding those for spoiler reasons. Please don't spoiler me in your reviews on what comes later!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: Quick reminder that I wrote Judith out of this group when I spun off from canon. So right now, it's just Daryl, Carol, and Tyrese traveling alone. I'm so excited you guys stuck around for this chapter! It's my favorite._

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

They found a cabin to spend the night in, strung up a high wire for walkers and a lower one for humans. Tyreese was out as soon as he hit the floor.

Daryl intended to go out and keep watch but he laid down just for a minute to rest his back and then Carol laid down next to him. He thought he should get up, but didn't. Just lay there while all his skin prickled and he remembered what she felt like all up close against him.

"Rick tell you what I did?" she asked quietly.

"Sure." He didn't think she should have killed David and Karen until they were sicker, but he could see why she'd done it. "He shouldn't have put you out for it. We've done worse. Shit, he's done worse."

"He was right. There's got to be a line, somewhere." She rolled up onto her side, laying her head on her arm.

He listened to the forest and stared at the ceiling for so long he didn't realize he was drifting off until she touched him.

Her fingers, climbing his side just above his belt. She'd done it a half dozen times. Sometimes as a joke, her deadpan flirting making his skin itch because he hated that she made fun of him that way. Then a couple times, in the dead of winter back when their group was scary small. Just like he had then, he shoved her hand off him.

He wasn't anybody's dildo, not even when there were no other men left alive.

He rolled away from her, up onto his side even though it made his hips and shoulders dig into the dusty wood floor. He didn't want to look at her. Not even by accident, not even out of the corner of his eye.

"Why, then?" she demanded. Flat, no nonsense. She wasn't a bit intimidated by him and he couldn't decide if he hated that or liked it.

"Quiet. Tyreese is sleeping."

"Tyreese slept through a walker attack last night," she said. "So don't use him for an excuse. I want to why you dragged me away from those guys like some kind of caveman if you didn't want me yourself."

"Didn't want 'em to take turns with you, fuck! Something wrong with that?"

His scalp was itching and he wished he'd have taken a full bath in that stream because he felt a little too much like what he was right now. A dirty white trash cracker. The kind of guy you flirted with for a joke, because everybody would know you weren't serious.

She touched him again. He hunched his shoulders, but she didn't stop, her finger tracing the outline of the wings on his vest. The scars beneath burned like she might feel all that ugly through the leather.

"I wondered if I'd see you again," she said, matter of factly. "I had this half-assed plan to hang around this store I found, because I knew you'd come to raid it eventually. It felt like we had all the time in the world, in that prison. It took me time to heal, after Ed. After Sophia. And I thought I was giving you the time you needed, to get used to people looking up to you. To settle in and open up, the way Michonne did." Her finger paused at the top of one wing. "Then all of a sudden, all my time ran out. Rick didn't even let me tell you goodbye. Which is good, because I might have asked you to come with me, and that wouldn't have been fair to the group at the prison."

He flipped over, the outline of the wings on his back tingling like her finger had lit them right up. "What?"

She smiled. He hated that smile, because it was a little mischievous and patient too, like she was waiting for him to catch up. He hated being the slow one.

He rolled up to his feet. "Gonna stand watch."

He unlocked the door and went outside, his bow feeling good in his hand. Maybe he'd stay on watch forever, because it was hard being around her now, when there were so few of them again. Hard seeing her when he'd been afraid she was gone for good.

What the hell did she mean, she was going to ask him to come with her?

For protection, maybe? Made sense. Group of two barely had a spit's chance on a griddle, and of the group at the prison, he could put walkers down faster than anybody but Michonne. Why wouldn't Carol ask her, though? They had a lot in common, those two.

The door opened and closed behind him. "Go to sleep, goddamn it."

"I understand feeling ugly," Carol said quietly.

His head whipped around and even in the dim moonlight, her hair was steel, hard-knuckled gray, her eyes that clear, clear blue. The hell was she talking about?

"Didn't say you were ugly," he muttered. Was that why she thought he slapped her hands away?

"You hear that stuff for so long, it starts to sound like the truth," she said. "Gets hard to hear anything else. Which is why I don't mind repeating myself to you."

She reached out and hooked a finger into his belt loop. She pulled and he didn't move, shocked-still with boots planted, and she came across the porch to him instead.

"I want you, Daryl Dixon," she said. "If you don't want me, that's fine. You've pushed me away enough times, you'd think I could take a hint. But when I was on my own all those weeks, I hated that I never said it. I thought I was obvious as the sun rising but sometimes I forget how alike we are, me and you. And I forget how many years I didn't know how to feel pretty."

Her hand curled tighter around his belt loop, her thumb tucking up and over the waistband of his jeans, so it was next to bare skin. His cock surged to life and his heart beat so hard he started to get lightheaded. He tried to remember exactly what she'd just said, to double check it. To run the sentences through his head forward and backward. And he couldn't remember a word.

She smiled. "I like it when you glare at me like that. I don't know why, but I do."

She laughed lightly, then looked up, like there was something in the sky she hadn't expected to see.

After a moment, she stepped back, her eyes still on his face. "Think about it," she said. "When you decide what you think, you know where to find me."

#

The next day, she kept touching him. Her shoulder, bumping his when they ate. Her fingers, skimming the leather of his vest or the waistline of his jeans. His _bow_.

Once, he even snapped at her for it, his eyes all grainy red from standing watch on that porch all night. Lot of good he probably did, with his head spinning so hard a legless walker probably could have taken him out. She just laughed, her eyes dancing like he was flirting. And Tyreese rolled his eyes and walked up ahead a little.

He didn't know what to do.

Wasn't like you could have a date, now. Should he kiss her? If they had a place, they could stake out their own room. He passed a few hours of walking thinking about that. His blankets between hers and the door. But shit, he didn't even have blankets anymore.

He kept thinking they could circle back to the prison. If he could get enough arrows, he could clear the place out again. Hated that old tomb, but Carol didn't. Besides, the others might think the same and they could meet up there. Glenn would, for sure. With him and Glenn and Carol, they could clean the place out and stock it up tighter than it had been before. Rick had never wanted to reinforce the fences, said it'd be harder to clean walkers off the wooden spikes than the chain link. But that was stupid.

He tossed a glance her way, and she was already watching him. She smiled, like she'd known she'd catch him looking, and his ears reddened. He glanced back to the forest around them.

If he laid next to her tonight, would she touch his back like that again? Good thing was, after the apocalypse, there was no sex with the lights on. She might feel his scars but she wouldn't have to see him. He'd got skinny again since they lost the prison, and maybe she wouldn't have to see that either. Dick was the same size. That oughta be enough.

He adjusted himself through his pants, and she made a choked sound like she'd seen. Jesus. He oughta grab her right now, kiss the shit out of her. See if that's really what she wanted. But if he did that, he knew he wouldn't hear a whole herd of walkers coming up on him, and Tyreese was a panty-wringing idiot. No good for a guard. They needed a place. Walls. Fences. Someplace he could risk taking his pants off.

His jeans chafed his growing hard on and he scowled at the ground. Hiking with wood hurt like a bitch. Been a while since he'd had to deal with that shit. Carol snorted out another giggle.

He clenched his teeth. He really wanted to turn the tables, get her all turned around the way he got when she tried to touch him.

All those times, had that been real? Maybe she hadn't been joking or teasing or just desperate enough to go for him because he was pretty near the last man on earth. He flicked his hair out of his eyes. It hurt, thinking about that.

"How was it?" he said abruptly.

"What's that?" she asked, a smile still playing around her lips.

"Being out there on your own."

The smile disappeared. "Rote," she said. "Killed walkers, looked for supplies. Stole gas. It was just one big to do list and every morning, I had to think why I wanted to do it at all." She sent him a sideways glance. "I ended up back at the prison. That's how I knew about the attack. I told Rick I wouldn't but…"

He grunted, to let her know she didn't have to say more. When he lost Beth, the world suddenly grew a thousand sizes and he could feel every empty mile stretching out around his boots. He could survive alone, yeah. But the groundlessness of it made him feel kind of sick. If Rick was still alive, he owed him a kick in the teeth for putting her through that.

He shifted his garbage back to his other hand and grabbed her hand. One of her fingers ended up in the wrong place but he held on hard, flexing his jaw.

She stopped walking. He stared straight ahead.

She tried to shake his hand loose and for some stupid reason, he just didn't let go. She said she wanted him, damn it. This was what people did. He'd seen Glenn and Maggie do it a thousand times.

But when she reached down with her other hand, she didn't pry his fingers loose. Instead, she gently rearranged their hands and just like that, they fit together.

He remembered girls he'd had, in the back room of the trailer with one foot up against the broken door, both to push off with and to keep Merle from walking in because he liked to pretend it was an accident, but he always stayed long enough to get a glimpse of bare tits.

It felt like another life, but he remembered what it was like to be inside a girl. He just couldn't remember if he'd ever held hands with one.

Carol started walking again, and neither of them let go.

* * *

 _Author's Note: In the next chapter, Carol gives her best shot to getting Daryl drunk and taking advantage of him. Can't say as how I blame her._


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: Random perfect song for the Walking Dead: "Wolves" by Down Like Silver. Also, I'm not 100% sure if Daryl grew up in a house or a trailer, or some of one and some of the other, so I'm going with the story he lived in a trailer at least for a while._

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

Daryl had been looking out sharp for a place to crash all day. He wanted hard walls around Carol as long as that group of claim everything assholes was still in the area. Houses were easier to protect than woods.

He found a long driveway at sunset and forced Tyreese to keep pushing even after the light was gone, because he wanted the house at the end. And they found it, too. Doors intact, windows solid, only one walker in the back bathroom that he lured outside before he killed it, to save himself having to drag it.

He bent over the kitchen sink, wishing like hell he could crank the faucet and water would just come on out. They'd stopped at a stream at noon to wash their clothes and he'd jumped all the way in rather than take off his shirt in broad daylight. But the bath had been ruined an hour later when they were overtaken by a herd of walkers. To save arrows, he'd beaten four or five of 'em to death with a rock, and he was paying for it now, the muscles sore all across his back, something maybe torn in there from the jarring impact of rock on skull.

He'd gotten meaner with walkers the last little while, thinking of a whole world of them out with Carol all alone. And now little Beth, though it probably wasn't walkers she was worried about now. She knew how to deal with walkers.

Shoving off the sink, he started slamming through kitchen cabinets as Tyreese came in with a grin and a double handful of ammo.

"Nice," Daryl allowed. "Fit any guns we got?"

"Yup. Plain ol' .38 and nine millimeter. God bless those rednecks who didn't get fancy with their guns."

"True that. Check under the bedroom pillows, you wanna find the guns to go with 'em." He glanced toward the living room, stalking over and digging in the cushions of the recliner. Sure enough. He came up with a dusty .38 revolver. "Better see if I can find some oil and ramrods around here. These have been sitting around too long."

"Hear, hear," Carol said dryly, coming down the stairs. "Gotta ramrod some of that rust out."

Tyreese laughed and Daryl ducked his head, popping out the cylinder to see how many extra bullets were in the gun. For a classy lady, Carol had a damn dirty sense of humor. He'd like that about her, except her double meanings all seemed to have double meanings these days and he wasn't sure if he knew any of the answers.

Six more bullets. Shit yes. He'd give fifty bullets for one more arrow, but bitching wouldn't change anything. He dropped the gun on the table, glancing toward the stairs. He'd cleared the rooms himself, so he knew there were real beds, slightly dusty blankets. Two doubles and a single. Carol left her backpack in one of the doubles and he didn't know what she expected of him. If he was an asshole if he took the same room as her, or if he was an asshole if he didn't.

Girls thought everything meant something. He didn't remember much from before, but he remembered that. Problem was, he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to say to Carol, in words or in actions. He'd smashed out the teeth of a walker headed for her ankle today. He hoped she'd noticed.

"There better be some fucking food in this place," he grumbled, going back to his scavenging mission. The second cupboard yielded some dry ramen and a few cans, some moldy-ass bread. He'd kill ten walkers for a piece of damn toast. He unwrapped the square of ramen noodles, sprinkled the seasonings on top, and took a salty-crunchy bite. Reminded him of being a kid. Ate this shit just about every night, and it wasn't until he was eight that Merle laughed at him and said you were supposed to put it in water.

He opened a can of Mexicali beans. His mouth watered but he only dipped out a single bite before he shoved it across the table to Carol. "Need to eat something. Getting skinny."

She batted her eyelashes. "Why Daryl, you're looking pretty trim yourself. You been working out?"

Tyreese sat down with a huff, passing Carol a spoon and digging into the beans alongside her as if they were used to sharing every meal. A spoon. Of course she'd want a spoon. Why hadn't he thought of that? He could hear Beth's voice in his head suddenly, squealing, _"Gross!"_ every time he ate anything, like there was a better way to shove food in your fucking piehole.

"What, nobody's gonna compliment my ass?" Tyreese said into the silence. "It's looking pretty svelte, if I do say so myself."

Carol choked on her beans, and started to laugh.

Daryl swallowed a half-chewed bite of dry ramen that scratched all the way down. He never made her laugh all the way like that. She smiled at him, giggled at him, but they rarely laughed together. It hadn't been that long that her and Tyreese had been traveling together. He wouldn't have figured those two to get so friendly, even before what went down with David and Karen.

He snatched at their beans. "Gimme some of that." He chomped a big bite, the liquid helping wash down his dry noodles. They tasted better back when he was a kid.

"You gonna share that, then?" Tyreese nodded at his ramen.

"Whole cupboard of it. Get your own."

"Might be better if we cooked it," Carol said. "This is a good place to boil more drinking water anyway, since the propane tank on this house isn't dry yet."

Daryl shoved the beans back across the table. "You two got anything else to say about how I eat? I need to hold my damn pinkie out when I do it, too?"

Carol shrugged. "If you like it better dry, eat it dry."

Tyreese glanced at her, and she just shook her head. Like Daryl was a child they were both stuck tending to. He stuffed half the ramen into his mouth on the next bite. He was starving, and obviously he wasn't doing so hot with the talking thing.

Carol got up and strolled around the kitchen while Tyreese finished off the beans. She looked so clean, even after the herd of walkers this afternoon. Her stolen clothes whispered around her body with a kind of grace that kept drawing his eyes. Like the lace curtains his mom had hung when he was a little, little kid, before she stopped caring about crap like curtains. He used to lay on his back on the kitchen floor and watch them flutter in the wind because they moved different than anything else. Lighter. Prettier.

Carol was like lace curtains in a trailer full of cigarette butts and bullet holes.

She came back to the table with a smile, offering a jar of maraschino cherries and a pack of old, dried out cookies that made him salivate with the unaccustomed burst of sugar when he bit into one. When she bent to check the lower cabinets, Daryl tried not to watch her. Instead he stared at Tyreese to see if he was watching.

Why hadn't Tyreese shot Lizzie? He knew that girl was like Carol's own daughter. Why would he make Carol put her down? Didn't he know how she was about kids? How doing that'd get inside her head?

Tyreese was a pussy, Daryl decided. Plain and simple.

His shoulder tingled and he looked up to find her right next to him. The curve of her hip brushed his arm as she slid three sparkling-clean glasses onto the table and held up a bottle. It shone amber in the light of the candles she'd scattered around the kitchen. Whiskey, a brand he'd seen in the store two shelves up from his own. Came in smaller bottles, too, glass instead of plastic. Probably because nobody who drank this stuff had to worry about his buddy smashing the bottom off and coming at him once they were half a bottle deep.

"Time to celebrate," Carol said with one of those smiles that lit her eyes from inside and made him want to stare like a dummy. His heel started to bounce against the floor.

"Celebrate what? Beth's taken. Prison's gone. God knows who all's dead."

"Finding you," Carol said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She tipped the bottle and poured whiskey into his glass. "Plus, this way, you didn't have to stay with that group of jerks you were apparently so fond of."

He looked down. He'd beaten that guy to death right in front of her and she hadn't so much as frowned at him over it.

He stared at the whiskey and all he saw was the clarity of pure, shed-born moonshine. The tinkling of a piano as he laid in a cushioned coffin, leaving muddy streaks on the pure white liner. The way Beth had shrieked and struggled against him as he'd held her in place and made her shoot that walker.

He shoved off the table. Bad enough that girl got him drunk enough to act like himself. Worse that she was nice to him, after all that. He wasn't going to the bottom of another bottle when he could still feel the filth of the last time clinging to him.

"Going to check on things outside." He pushed the whiskey toward Carol. "You celebrate for me."

He jerked his bow off the ground and slammed the door behind him. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, as if he'd never left.

All he could hear was her voice from last night. Clear, and so steady.

 _I want you, Daryl Dixon._

She didn't know him. She was just reaching for anything to make her forget those two little girls, same way she'd sought out his camp after Sophia. She'd stayed while he screamed at her, and it wasn't because he was such a charming guy that she was longing for his company.

Once, Carol had chosen that dog-shit-on-your-boot husband of hers, and now she thought she wanted Daryl.

He thought maybe she was like Rick. Too good of a person in a bad world, so they kept punishing themselves without noticing that's what they were doing. Rick, ignoring that pretty wife of his when she was pregnant with the last baby in the damn universe, all because he felt bad his best friend didn't get to have her, too. Stupid.

Carol, too, thinking he knew how to do anything with a girl other than a quick, drunken fuck, or maybe filling the freezer now and again. Stupid.

He stomped loudly across the wooden porch, hoping the sound would bring in a walker he could kill. He needed to beat on something and Merle wasn't here no more. Nobody else would understand and not take it personal, but walkers didn't have to understand shit.

Reflected light flickered on the front yard as somebody set a candle in front of one of the upstairs windows.

Good. She needed sleep more than whiskey. He'd nail the back door shut and sleep across the front. So nobody could be as stupid as he'd been, opening a door in the fucking apocalypse without looking first 'cause he thought he'd get a kid a dog to make her smile.

He rested his bow against the front railing, thumb flicking across the string to check for frays. He didn't have enough arrows to hardly use the damn thing anymore, but he liked to hold it anyway.

The door creaked open behind him. He threw a look back, and even a second of her slender silhouette was enough to make his dick stir. Some gentleman he was.

"Tyreese went to bed," she said. "Come in and have a drink with me. Just me and you, like old times."

She meant all those times when she'd sat up with him on watch. At the farm, and the prison, and a hundred camps he no longer remembered. Because she wanted him to come in and be with the group, but he knew his place wasn't at the table. It was at the edge of the dark with a bow in his hand. They rarely said much to each other those nights, and he was never sure why she kept coming back.

"I'm a dick when I drink," he muttered.

She bumped her shoulder with his. "C'mon now. If I can't get you drunk, how am I going to take advantage of you?"

He stiffened. Joke wasn't funny. Not when Beth got hauled off by some dickheads who didn't stop when they saw a guy running after their car, screaming her name. Not when the Asshole Brigade was still out there, knowing Carol was the only woman for miles and their three guns were outnumbered. He'd seen their campfire smoke out to the east, but he was starting to think he needed to circle around and kill them if he ever wanted to sleep again. Wished Rick was here to go with him. Or Michonne. He'd like to see Michonne finish those boys off.

Carol moved behind him, her slender hands slipping around his waist. Over his belt buckle and then under his shirt and vest to the tender skin of his belly. He came erect in a throbbing rush, but that wasn't all that hurt. His stomach ached, and every beat of his heart felt like it was pressing on a fresh bruise. She laid her cheek against the wings on the back of his vest and he hoped there wasn't any blood left on it from earlier.

"Thought it might be nice to do something normal," she murmured. "Like a date. Instead of hanging out while we watch for corpses that want to eat us."

Shame sunk sharp claws into him. She meant it like a date? Fuck, what had he said to her when she asked? Something mean, probably. But if he and Carol played the "I've never" game, something told him they'd be drinking on a lot more of the same things than him and little blonde Beth.

She shifted back, her touch sliding away. His hand slapped down over the top of hers, his reflexes killing-fast from too many nights of sleeping with his bow in one hand and a knife in the other.

"All right, then." She chuckled, and hugged him a little, her thumb stroking just above his belly button. That sent quivery feelings down into his balls and up into his throat. Belatedly, he eased his grip, just resting his hand on top of hers. He was hoping she'd know that meant he wanted her to stay.

"Last time I got drunk, I burned a house down," he said in explanation. "Took a piss all over the living room." Right in front of a young girl, but he didn't say that part. It curdled his guts and he could only imagine how much worse it would sound to Carol.

"I peed in a kitchen two weeks ago," Carol said, sounding a little sleepy. "Was alone and there were a lot of walkers moving through. It was the only place defensible enough to take my pants down for a second."

He squeezed her hand, frowning. If he saw Rick again, he was knocking out a tooth or two for that stunt. Maybe it was right to punish her somehow, for what she'd done. Fuck, he wouldn't know. That's why Rick was in charge of making rules and Daryl was in charge of killing things. But leaving her alone…that wasn't right.

"The smoke." Carol lifted her head. "How long ago did you burn that house down?"

"Few days. Maybe a week."

"I saw it," she whispered. "You were so close. Mika and Lizzie were still alive."

She squeezed him tighter and he rubbed a hand over her arm. Probably a little too fast. After he did it, he thought it might have been better if it was a little slower, softer. He was learning. If she'd let him, he'd try it again later.

"So what do you say? Mini date? Promise I'll stop you if you try to burn the house down. No way am I wasting a perfectly good mattress."

He let out a breath, feeling the way his stomach quavered all the more acutely with her hand resting on it.

"You drink. I'll come in and sit with you, if you really want."

"Daryl…" She let him go and he wished he'd have promised to drink all the whiskey in the world. What kind of dumbass was he, anyway?

She slipped around in front of him, leaning on the porch rail. "Ever since we talked, you've been really standoffish. Snapping at everyone. I guess when I found the whiskey, I was just hoping I might get you to let your walls down for a minute or two."

His face twitched and he stared out into the blackness, hoping for a walker. "I ain't nice, Carol. You lived with me for over a year. You oughta know that."

"That's not true." She leaned her elbows on the porch rail next to him. "You're quiet, and you're short with people when you're defensive, but when you have something you know how to do—tracking or hunting or even holding little Judith, you get almost serene." She tilted her head with a smile. "I'm starting to think I'm something you don't know how to do."

His thumb ran down the string of his bow. "I didn't do dates, before. Didn't have no money, didn't have the kind of girls you took on dates." He shrugged. "Maybe whiskey at the table ones, yeah, but not that kind of whiskey." He looked at her, narrow-eyed. "And I told you, you don't want to be on no whiskey date with me."

She scooted over so she was more directly in front of him, her hands cupping his jaw. They felt so soft, so foreign on his skin, and he went still, not sure why she was doing that but hoping she wouldn't stop.

"Like you said, I lived with you for over a year," she said. "I do know you. All I want is for you to stop acting like I'm trying to get you to fall for some cruel prank." Her fingers tightened until they weren't soft at all anymore, and her eyes shone a little damply in the candlelight from the front window. "You think _I_ don't know what it's like to be humiliated? Back when Ed was alive, in quarry camp, I know you saw…things I wish nobody'd seen." She let go of him long enough to dash the heel of her hand over her eye. "You think I would want you to feel like that, even for a second?"

He shifted uneasily. "No."

She burst out laughing at the single word. Real laughing, even with tears still sparkling in her eyes. The corner of his mouth tilted up, even though he wasn't sure he knew what was so funny. But he'd made her laugh. Louder than Tyreese did.

When she subsided, she was still smiling, looking so pretty it made him wish he knew how to kiss like one of those movie guys. Bending her over backwards and everything.

"I don't know why you're the skittish one," she said. "I'm the one hanging my heart out on the line, and to a guy I have to keep traveling with even if he gives me the 'Let's just be friends' speech." She looked down. "Or even if he never says anything at all."

He frowned. He hadn't thought about it like that. Had he hurt her feelings, not saying anything back? A woman like Carol, she must know most of the guys around would be happy to shuck their pants at a single word from her. Shit, two days in and he was screwing this up something ugly.

"Hey, I—" He fumbled. How do you comfort a woman who thought she'd hung her heart out on a line for you? She waited, not even seeming impatient, but the silence stretched longer and longer as the words stuck harder and harder in his throat. "I like you just fine," he snapped.

Her smile blossomed and she looked like she was on the edge of laughing but too nice to let it loose. "I know."

"What?! But you—"

"Doesn't mean I didn't need to hear it from you." She took his hand. "I think we've had enough talking for one night. Let's get some sleep." He threw one more glance toward their noisemaker tripwire as she led him toward the door. "This?" She held their clasped hands up. "That was nice, today. Doesn't have to be harder than that, Daryl."

"Guess not," he grumbled, relief making him feel as loose as if he'd had a shot or two of that whiskey after all. "You're grabbing at me all the time like it's so easy."

With her free hand, she pinched his butt, so fast he jumped in surprise. She grinned. "I'm a grabby woman. Just finding that out about myself, actually. And I can't say I'm too ashamed."

He smiled, ducking his head so she wouldn't see, because he wasn't sure if he was supposed to think that was funny.

"Smile like that again and I'm going to find out another thing or two about myself tonight." She said it so deadpan he couldn't help the chuff of a laugh that escaped him.

She let go of his hand and grabbed the new gun off the table, stuffing it in the back of her pants. His gaze drifted below the gun. She hadn't gotten too skinny everywhere.

He cleared his throat. "Try not to fire that until I've had the chance to clean it. Sitting this long, might misfire. Blow up in your hand."

"I know," she said. "I just didn't want to leave it sitting around down here in case anyone else came through."

It was the same thought he'd had, but he hadn't wanted to let go of her hand or his bow long enough to pick it up.

She grabbed a candle and headed upstairs. He blew out the rest, checked the windows, locked the door, and followed her. Slow, in case she didn't mean him to, so he could look like he was just heading for the other room.

But once they got upstairs, she stopped and turned.

Fuck. What would Glenn have said, back when him and Maggie were all nervous and flirty? Glenn would never assume a woman wanted him to take her to bed. "Uh, goodnight?"

She nodded toward a bedroom and inside, he could see her pack on the floor.

Daryl panicked.

He shifted his weight to one foot, then the other, swung around and shoved a hand through his hair, which was still annoyingly greasy even after his bath earlier. He needed shampoo or some shit. But shampoo was heavy, when you were on the run.

He couldn't go in that room with her. He wanted to do so many things with her, probably a hell of a lot more things than she wanted him to, even with her sly smiles and dirty sense of humor. Not only did he not know how to kiss like those movie guys, he didn't know how to make love, and that's what a woman like her deserved. Not rawboned, trailer park banging.

He swung back to Carol, ducking his head so Tyreese wouldn't hear if he was still awake. "Can't," he whispered. "Need to go to town."

He could still picture Lori's swollen belly, the cross they'd planted in her grave. He couldn't risk Carol like that, and if his dick had its way, she'd be carrying his baby by morning. _His_ baby. His pulse throttled upward again.

She frowned. "You want to go to town right now? It'd be safer in the light."

"No, but before…" He nodded toward the bedroom.

"Ah." She smiled. "What, you think I'm that easy?"

He could tell she was joking though, not really offended, so he ducked his head, a tiny smile twisting the edge of his lips. "Maybe I'm the one that's easy."

"Not so far."

He chuckled, the sound so low it was almost silent. She took his hand and pulled him inside, but before she pushed the door all the way closed, she hesitated and looked back. "Even if we haven't gone to town yet, it might be nice not to be alone."

When she still didn't close the door, he realized she was waiting for him to say yes or no. He ducked a nod, shy all over again. Why'd she keep thinking he'd say no?

He kicked off his boots, watching her out of the corner of his eye to see if she wanted to take clothes off or anything. He usually slept in his, in case he had to run in the middle of the night, and 'cause he never had a door he could shut to be sure nobody'd see him. When she only took off her shoes, he was relieved and disappointed all at once.

She pulled back the covers and laid down. He sat on the edge of the bed, rolled his legs in and laced his hands behind his head, trying to be cool about it. He waited, but she didn't reach for him like he thought she might. Maybe she was thinking he wouldn't want her to, since he hadn't come inside right away.

"All those times?" he said. "I didn't shove you off because you wasn't pretty."

Carol caught up a little breath, her lips pressing together like she might cry, and she nodded quickly.

He watched her for a second, puzzling out her reaction, then he rolled so he faced away from her. Reaching around, he put her hand on his shoulder, then let go. "First time you touched me when we were alone, we'd shacked up in a shed for the night. Threw a bunch of trash out to make room for us and we were trying to sleep but it reeked like shit and cabbage. You said, 'Fancy finding a gentleman like you in a place like this.'" He reached back and found her hand, putting it on his shoulder. "And you put your hand right here."

"You slapped my hand off so hard it hurt," she whispered.

His face twitched at the memory. Maybe she hadn't been making fun. Maybe she'd been flirting, in her blunt Carol way.

He reached back and put his hand over hers, holding it in place. She scooted closer and laid her forehead against his vest. The bed was soft against all his bruises, and he liked having walls around him and a person he trusted at his back.

When he slumped into the middle of the road, he thought he'd die there. Alone like Beth predicted—the last man standing. After failing to protect everyone he'd ever cared about, he figured it was about what he deserved.

He couldn't believe after all that had happened, Carol was here. Alive. With him. And her hand was back on his shoulder.

* * *

 _Author's Note: I'm not saying there are sexy times in the next chapter. I'm just saying Daryl and Carol are in the same bed and Carol ain't shy. You do that math._


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: Quick reminder that this chapter ain't rated for the kiddies. Because fun.  
_

 _M for mature sexual content._

* * *

Chapter 4

"Good morning, handsome."

Daryl woke up to Carol's smile, and it took him a second to realize it wasn't a dream. He started to frown automatically, then remembered she wasn't teasing. She was flirting.

He tested the thought in his head. She thought he was…handsome. It didn't really sink in, so he just pushed it away.

Her gaze drifted downward, and her fingers followed. "You sure wake up enthusiastic."

Pain twisted way down low. He glanced down and traced the feeling to his erection, punching up past his twisted belt so the head of his cock was visible and swollen. Shit.

He reached down to shove it back out of sight, but Carol beat him to it. Her palm cuddled over the line of his manhood, giving it a firm squeeze. His eyes flew wide, and she grinned. "We don't have to go into town for this, you know."

She stroked him all the way down, then all the way back up, slicking her thumb over the head of him so that a beat of moisture slicked across too sensitive skin. She scooted closer, pressing her breasts into his arm, her hips into his thigh. "You want me to stop, you're gonna have to beg, Dixon."

He dropped his head back on the pillow, shoving the heels of both hands into his eyes. This felt a fucking lot like the dream he'd just been having. "I ain't gonna last long."

"Stamina's not a virtue until after we go to town," she said. "Plus, we need to get up and scavenge before long. I'm going to have to get you off quick." She ran her hand down between his legs, squeezed his balls through his pants.

" _Christ_."

Her fingers tickled back up his shaft and she pulled his belt out of its tab. "Last chance."

He opened his eyes and she was smiling, but there was a little worry in her eyes, too, like she was still waiting for him to shove her hand away. Fuck that. He was the man. He oughta be taking the lead here.

He grabbed the nape of her neck and hauled her down to his lips. He didn't know what the hell he was doing and he was too blind horny to care. His lips battered hers. All he wanted was her _mouth_. God, her mouth.

He rolled up on his side, his pants coming open around her wrist as she took hold of his arousal.

Her lips parted and he stabbed his tongue against hers. Fierce. Finally. Hers curled against his, softer, happier and he groaned as his hips jacked his cock into her hand. She flipped her grip, reaching deeper into his pants.

"Ahh…" He groaned into her mouth, pressing her onto her back and rubbing thoughtlessly against her. His cock against her leg, her hand, her belly. She released his arousal and started wriggling underneath him. He pulled back to see what she was doing and she ripped her shirt off. Her bra, too, though it caught on her chin because she didn't unfasten it first. He helped her with it, throwing it down onto the floor.

She arched back up to kiss him this time, one hand buried in his hair and the other diving back beneath his zipper.

He wanted to sing or cry or something big and bright and silly, a bubble rising in his chest like all the good things in the world had been stored somewhere deep in his belly and forgotten until right now, when Carol was touching him simply because she wanted to. Because she wanted _him._

Her hand was rough, as thoughtlessly urgent as the jerking movements his hips were making against her. He wanted to propose, to bring her flowers, to kiss her beautiful thighs. He came instead. Into her hand and across her breasts in hot, exploding spurts that shot far enough to leave him with black dots pounding in front of his vision.

He opened his eyes enough to see the wet streaks he'd left across her pretty nipples, and he was ashamed and satisfied all at once. He yanked up the sheet to wipe her off, and when his untutored swipes passed her nipples, she arched with a tiny little sound like she enjoyed it. He was kneeling with one knee between her legs and she pressed into it, heat at the crotch of her jeans bleeding through so he could feel it against his thigh.

He grabbed her wrists, pinning them over her head as he kissed her. She was only half cleaned off and he was getting vest all wet but he didn't care because she was gasping into his kisses and getting herself off on his leg and it was making him so hot he was dizzy with all the things he wanted to do. Screw scavenging. Screw town.

He was staying here until he fucked both of them blind, deaf and dumb so they didn't have to see anything beyond the room again.

Suddenly, he had to know if she was feeling all this, too. He stuffed a hand gracelessly down her pants, under her panties, forcing it past the constriction of her waistband. When his fingers came away wet, he growled through his teeth like an animal.

She dug both hands into his hair and rocked against his hand, her most intimate places sliding wetly against his shaking fingers.

He'd done this in high school, in the bed of his old pickup. Fingerbanging. There, he knew the word for it. It shouldn't feel so incredibly new. He searched until he found the opening and pushed a finger up into her. She sucked in a breath.

He felt her squeeze around him and that had to be good. He'd never done this sober, never remembered the girl being this wet before. Certainly never done it with a girl who was sober, too. He pulled out a little and pushed back inside, hoping that was what she wanted. She reached down and popped the button on her pants, unzipping them and spreading her thighs to make more room for him. He liked that. Oh fuck, he liked that.

All that wet was pooling into his hand, and his dick was flopping out of his open fly, so it was really damn obvious when he started to harden again. She held onto his shoulders and rode his hand a little, rocking him up deep inside of her.

He gritted his teeth, biting down hard on his molars to remind himself he couldn't tear her pants down and replace his finger with something a lot more satisfying for both of them.

Condom. They needed condoms. He couldn't, flat out _couldn't_ risk her. He started pumping her harder, frustrated because his hand was a poor substitute for everything he wanted to give her. She grabbed his wrist.

"Slow," she whispered.

He went red around the ears. Rawboned trailer park fucking. It's what he reverted back to as soon as he popped wood. He slowed, trying for a gentle slide, and she hummed her approval. Better to learn now when it was just a finger so he didn't get too rough on her with the real thing. If he ever got that far.

But her hips weren't curling up toward him anymore and he chewed on the inside of his cheek, his shoulders tensing. What if he couldn't get her off? She got him off in less'n two minutes. Which okay, he hadn't even had the pitiful release of his own hand recently, because it felt too dirty when Beth was sleeping nearby. But Carol hadn't had anything lately either, so shouldn't she finish out as easy as him?

"Wait," she said.

He pulled out and moved back, his dick shrinking along with his embarrassment. "Sorry," he muttered.

She shimmied her hips, pushing her pants down and caught his hand, bringing it back to the dark, springy curls at the center of her. Daryl blinked and then eased down to lie beside her, watching as she cupped his hand, rubbing his fingers unselfconsciously onto her pussy.

"Shit, that's hot."

She grinned, her eyes closed and her face a little tense as she nestled his fingers deeper into the warm layers of her. "Right there, feel that?"

Soft, wet skin, and a tight hard little ball that pulsed a little when she pushed his hand against it. He'd felt one before, but hadn't paid much attention to how it responded back to him.

"Do it really soft," she whispered. "Keep your fingers wet and rub right around there. Inside is good, too, but not…not just inside and not so fast."

He shook his hair forward so it hid his eyes, back tensing against his sore muscles. She was telling him how to finger her, like he was some ignorant kid. Fuck that. He was a grown damn man and he didn't need—

But then she spread her legs a little, relaxing into the pillows and she was nearly naked and the most beautiful thing he'd seen in years. He dropped his head and kissed her chest, just below her collarbone, then laid his cheek on her shoulder and concentrated on what he was doing.

He rubbed her very very slowly. The soft, slick skin and just a little across that hard little knot because she shuddered when he did it, and he was a little afraid to poke at it too much. So he just did big circles. Turned out, staying wet wasn't a problem, and when he slipped his finger into her again, it slid so easily he added a second.

She gripped around his fingers and he squeezed his eyes shut. "Shit, Carol."

She laughed breathlessly, and her hand came back, shifting his so his palm pressed against that hard, wet little knot even as he penetrated her with his fingers. Her knees came up, pants falling further down as she thrashed against his hand, squeezing him tight tight tight until his dick throbbed in response and he had to grip it with his free hand to calm it the fuck down.

Her nails scraped against the sheets and her hips came clear off the bed, shoving herself almost violently against his hand. "More," she gasped and he frigged her harder, holding his palm steady so she could rub against it but all but slamming his fingers into her tight, wet little channel. On instinct, he added a third finger, forcing it in as her muscles clenched against him.

"Ah ah ah!" She yanked a pillow over her face and her thighs clamped shut on his hand, her inner muscles convulsing as they shuddered around his soaked fingers.

The relief of being able to drive her to a peak left him a little giddy. He grinned. "You said you didn't like it so hard. Liar."

She laughed into the pillow, giving his fingers a naughty little squeeze. Shit, could she do that on purpose? Could she do it when he was inside her?

His dick jumped and he grabbed it and gave it a long, firm pull, his shoulder half asleep from laying on it but his wrist moving fast as he started to work himself over.

At first, he didn't realize she'd pulled the pillow away and was watching what he was doing to himself. Then her hands curled onto his bare hips, nails biting in as she watched.

He panted, too far gone to care how stupid he probably looked, the head of his cock almost purple it was so abused and aroused. He could see how slick his other hand was as he pulled it away from her and that was all he needed to set him over the edge. He swapped hands and rolled up to kneeling, his pants bunched around his knees as he jerked off with the hand all slick from playing with her, the feel of her arousal on his cock the most sensual thing he'd ever felt. Her nails dug into his ass as she squirmed beneath him, breathing as hard as he was.

"Come on me again," she said suddenly, her pussy bucking up until it almost touched the head of him. "God, I want you. Come on me. On my legs." She opened her thighs wide and he shot just at the sight of it. Right up one creamy thigh. Then he bent his hard dick to hit her other leg, her belly, the dark curls between her legs. He just kept coming like it'd been years, his shoulders shuddering and his right hand locked on his swollen shaft. When the last wave came and it was dry, he dropped his dick and let it hang, bracing his hands to either side of her as he tried to catch his breath.

"You've got a dirty mind, woman. Damn."

She laughed and pinched his bare butt. "You complaining?"

He pulled up the sheets and started to wipe her off, but she needed a shower or a hose or something. He'd gotten really carried away. If they stayed here, they were going to have to find some way to wash these sheets.

She laid there, totally relaxed, and let him clean her up.

"I'd like to be dirty," she said matter of factly.

He looked up at her, feeling mellow. "What'd you mean?"

"I've never been the dirty one." She shrugged. "When I first got married, I was focused on being pretty, feminine. Demure, because Ed thought my sense of humor was too flirty. Then later on, I forgot I liked sex at all. It was just something I had to sit through, like a lecture in church." She wriggled back into her panties, then hitched up her pants, lifting up a little to get them back on. She grinned at him. "I think I want to get a little dirty, this time around. But you're going to have to stop being so damn shy."

"Shy?" He gestured at the drying streaks across her breasts. "You call that shy? I practically humped you."

"You did hump me." She giggled and pressed up to kiss his jaw. "I liked it." She fell back to the bed with a gusty sigh. "I think we should stay here for a while."

"I think we ought to go to town."

"I think we should send _Tyreese_ to town."

He laughed, stuffing himself back into his pants but not zipping them up, in case Carol decided to get grabby again. "Smart thinking." He pulled a pillow up under his head and laid a hand on her ribs. Her skin was soft, and she didn't protest, so he inched his hand up, boldly cupping her breast.

She gasped and stared at him. "Well, Daryl Dixon, the nerve on you!"

"Shut up," he grumbled, about 80% sure she was joking, but keeping his hand very still just in case.

She laughed and wriggled, her hard little nipple rubbing distractingly against his palm, and he settled his grip more firmly.

"Now _you're_ getting grabby," she said, her eyelids starting to drift downward despite the bright sunlight from the window. "I like it."

"Yeah?" he asked, but she was already asleep.

He watched her for a few minutes. Even asleep, she looked happier than he could ever remember. So he ignored the sounds of Tyreese from downstairs and the brightening day outside and the whole world full of walkers. He pulled the blanket back up over them and went back to bed.

* * *

 _Author's Note: If you're enjoying my take on the Walking Dead, try out that author follow button! I've got two Caryl one shots coming up, plus I just started a longer story covering the long winter between Season 2 and 3, where they both really came into their own. They both gained so much confidence and humor and camaraderie between when she rode off on the back of his bike in Season 2 and when he was massaging her shoulder in Season 3, and I really wanted to SEE that friendship grow. It's a lot slower burn than this, but knowing me, I might have to break canon to let a little romance in by the end. We'll see. If anybody's still reading TWD fic from those old seasons, I'd love to hear from you, and I'd love some recs for good fics to read, too. I don't know anybody in this fandom yet._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The forest was alive today, or maybe she was just more alive. Instead of keeping her eyes down, on her footing or the trees around them, Carol followed Daryl's gaze. He was so aware out here. Checking a track, then a sound up in a tree, watching for a squirrel big enough to shoot. Slowing to narrow his eyes at a bush, maybe looking for berries or some of the little herbal things he'd started bringing back for them to eat.

With her gaze always moving like this, she started to see how deeply green the bushes were, the way the soil emitted a pleasant, earthy scent after last night's rain. They were supposed to be scavenging today, but she was happy for now just to walk.

Daryl snapped a green berry off a bush, but instead of nibbling at it to test how unripe was still edible—and his standards were _low_ —he turned and flicked it at her. So fast it bounced right off her nose.

She blinked, so surprised she almost missed the quick little pull of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. "Watch it, Mister." She pointed. "I saw some poison ivy back there and I know where you store your extra drawers."

"Like to see you try," he drawled.

She smiled as he walked away, his gait looser, more relaxed than usual. Hell, he was even letting his feet make noise amongst the leaves. Tyreese shot her an amused look and she smiled back. Daryl had been grouchier than ever toward him lately. The other man was probably relieved to not be catching the rough edge of his tongue for once.

Carol kept walking and paused when she found a flower laying directly in her path. It was plucked, so she knew it hadn't gotten there by accident. It wasn't a Cherokee rose, but white and a similar shape to it.

But when she looked up, Daryl was still walking, so smooth she'd never seen him stop to leave the flower.

She plucked the flower off the ground, tucking it into her hair with a smile.

Daryl stopped, his hand swinging out down low in his signal for "stay back." She kept going, because she never liked it when he did that. Why should she leave him hanging out in front to take the full force of whatever danger was coming? He flicked a look back with a scowl and tapped his ear and then pointed to a tree. She halted, wincing when she realized he was trying to keep her from scaring a plump-looking squirrel any higher up into the branches. When he shot them too far up, they got caught in the branches and he ended up scaling the tree to get them back. A few days ago, a branch had snapped under his weight and he'd fallen a good fifteen feet. Scared her half to a heart attack because a broken leg without a secure place to hole up would mean death. Not too many walkers had gathered at the house where they'd been staying, but it was only a matter of time. They would.

Leaves shuffled and Carol signaled to Tyreese to shut up, but it wasn't him. It was a walker coming from the other direction, dragging his foot as he headed for Daryl.

Tyreese pulled his hammer out of his belt, but Carol waved him off, gauging the distance between Daryl and the squirrel, Daryl and the walker. Quietly, she popped the snap on her sheathed knife. The walker was only a few steps away now, not even groaning yet, and Daryl was so focused on making the complicated shot through several branches that he didn't even twitch.

The crossbow string thwapped, and Carol lunged. She caught the walker just as his hand reached Daryl's shoulder, and her knife sank deep in the thing's eye socket.

She yanked her knife free and turned to find Daryl with one hand on his crossbow and the other raised with a knife. Lord, the man moved fast. He looked mildly annoyed. "I had it, woman."

She huffed. "You don't have to do everything."

"Kill my own walkers, anyway." He kicked the fallen corpse, checking to see if it needed a second stab.

"Why do you always go for the eyes?" Tyreese asked.

"Doesn't dull my knife as fast. Less likely to get stuck in the bone." Carol wiped her knife on the grass and put it away.

Tyreese shuddered. "I hate the pop of the eyeballs. And every damn time I do it, I hear that quote in my head. 'An eye for an eye makes us all blind.'"

Carol laughed. "Did you really just quote Ghandi in the middle of the zombie apocalypse?"

"Thought an eye for an eye was from the bible." Daryl frowned.

"Different eye quote." Carol winked at Tyreese. "You'll forgive me, but passive resistance just isn't my thing these days."

He laughed, and Daryl looked confused. He whirled to snatch up the squirrel he'd shot. "Whenever you two are done laughing because I don't know Gandy-who-the-fuck-ever, we've got walking to do." He stalked away.

"Daryl!" she called after him. "Hey, wait up."

But his legs were _long_ when he was mad.

Beside her, Tyreese swallowed a sigh and she half-jogged to keep up with them, the silence getting tense as Daryl steamed toward town.

When the buildings started coming into sight, she pressed her lips together. She didn't want to go into that walker-haven mad. Because something might happen. And she knew Daryl was distracted.

Making a split-second decision, she broke into a run. She caught him by the arm, and it flexed under her hand, resisting as she hauled him around. But she caught his arms firmly and kissed him. She felt the little jolt go through him as their lips met. He didn't kiss her back at first, but when her hands climbed his chest and cupped his neck, the warmth of him echoing through her palms, she felt the vibration of some tiny sound coming up through his throat that never made it to his lips. It made her ache.

There was so much emotion locked up inside him, and when she could make him feel safe enough to reveal even a thread of it, it was enough to set her shaking. There was so much to this man, so much beneath the ragged, careless surface.

His thin lips softened beneath hers, his goatee tickling her lips, and one hand came up to touch the small of her back and curled softly into her skin. She shivered, broken by the tentative hope in that touch. Then his fingers jerked and he set her away from him, abruptly.

"You trying to get us chewed up by a bunch of walkers? Shit, Carol. Don't go kissing on me like that out in the open!"

He paced off a step or two, came back. In a different mood, she might have found it funny, how thrown off he was by a simple kiss.

"That's what you wanted, wasn't it?" She dropped her hands on her hips. "You wanted Tyreese to know I'm with you, not him. Well, guess what, Daryl Dixon? I'm going to laugh with other men and that doesn't change a goddamn thing between me and you. Got that?"

His eyes were dark with anger. "Never said you couldn't."

"Tyreese?" She looked to him. "Daryl and I are in a relationship."

He snorted. "Shit, you think? You don't need to mail me my third wheel certificate. Just try to keep it down when I'm trying to sleep in, huh? I practically got knocked up just from the sounds coming from your room."

Daryl stepped in. "The fuck you doing listening so close to her room?"

She smacked him. "Why don't you go back to when you were all flirty and throwing berries at me? I liked that guy a lot better."

"I ain't jealous," he growled.

"Well, you ain't exactly Good Morning America, either."

He glanced between her and Tyreese. "You two are always laughing about shit you know I ain't never heard of."

She grabbed at his crossbow and pointed to the part where the bolt seated. "I don't know what this is." She pointed to the bush next to them. "I have no idea what that's called or what it's good for. I've never shot a single squirrel in my life, though god knows I've eaten hundreds this year." She let her arms drop to her sides. "Go ahead and laugh at me. There are thousands of things I don't know a whit of anything about, and I'm not ashamed of it, either."

"Hunting's a hell of a lot more useful than Ghandi these days," Tyreese said, and shrugged. "I try not to complain, but you make me feel like an idiot about fifty times a day."

Emotions flickered across Daryl's face and he chewed on his lips. "Well, stop it," he finally spat at Tyreese.

The tall black man smiled. "Uh, okay."

Carol patted Daryl's chest. "Now that we're all made up, is everybody in the right head space to go to town?"

He glanced at her, glanced away. "Sorry."

She plucked the flower out of her hair and tucked it behind his ear. "Already forgotten, Pookie."

He knocked the flower out, but the little chuff of his laugh, a sound anybody who didn't know him would mistake for just an exhale, was the best sound she'd ever heard.

#

Carol's fork drooped toward her bowl as she watched Daryl picking pieces of squirrel out of his bowl, popping them in his mouth. She liked the way he ate. It was completely disgusting, especially since he rarely did more than wipe deer or walker blood off onto his pants before he did it, but the longer she knew him, the more it made her smile. Possibly because when he ate, all his attention focused on the food and it was the most relaxed, least self-conscious he got without a bow in his hand.

"Can I ask you a question without you getting mad?"

"Nope."

She laughed at the deadpan and he smirked a little, glancing at Tyreese, too, who was head-down, matching bites of canned peaches with saute'ed squirrel. He mostly ignored them these days, when he couldn't find an excuse to get out of the house. Carol was pretty sure he'd grab a chance to join another group if one came along.

"Why don't you use silverware? Even when we have it, you hardly ever use it."

His eating slowed and he licked his fingers, pulling them out of his mouth with a pop. He slouched back in his chair, looked at Tyreese again, then shrugged.

"Never got used to 'em. Didn't see the point. After Mom died, most of the forks in the house got lost somewhere. We had a spoon or two, but they were always dirty. And burnt up on the bottoms, so you could taste it in whatever you ate." He grimaced.

 _Drugs,_ Carol thought faintly. There was some kind of drug you had to heat up in a spoon with a lighter underneath. Living in a house with Merle, burnt-up spoons probably were the norm.

"Fingers are easier," he said. "Less to clean. Can't lose 'em."

She kept her eyes on her food when she thought that over, because she knew Daryl would be sharp-eyed for pity. He didn't mind saying his parents were crappy, as long as nobody felt bad for him about it.

"Makes sense," she said, then peeked up at him with a smile. "Especially to somebody who dodges his share of the dishes every night he can."

He scowled. "Do not. I washed 'em this week."

Even Tyreese snorted at that one, then immediately looked nervous.

"Oh, I gotta check the snares," Carol said, dropping her voice to imitate his. "Work on the fence, add some more cans. Board up this low window." She laughed. "You'd build a ten-foot fence two miles around if it'd get you out of washing a single bowl."

"That how you get me to do all the work 'round here?" he said, and crossed his boots on the chair across from him, dropping another piece of squirrel into his mouth.

She picked up her bottle of water. "Ah, hell, you're on to me."

And he laughed. All the way out loud. With his mouth full of squirrel, and he accidentally kicked her when one foot slipped off the chair, but he _laughed._

* * *

 _Author's note: Don't worry folks. We're not going to end this fic without giving that M-rating a little more of a workout. But I had to have a cute moment or two of Carol and Daryl as a couple outside of bed. For reasons._

 _If you're liking my Caryl, I just posted a one-shot of a sweet, expanded moment between them in the domestic violence shelter in Atlanta, in episode 5x06 Consumed. It's called "Shelter". I've got another more one-shot coming up soon from that episode, too, called "We Ain't Ashes." So try out the author follow button if you want notifications for all my stories._


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Carol started up out of the chair at the squeak of the porch stairs, and immediately made herself busy at the sink. She'd run out of things to do hours ago, organizing supplies and keeping them divided into packs stashed around the house in case they needed to leave in a hurry.

The door creaked open and Daryl came in, breathing hard, which wasn't good. Usually he came out of the woods breathing as slow and even as a monk in meditation. But even if he'd run into trouble—and he usually did—he was back now. The rest didn't bear thinking about.

"Took you awhile." Carol very methodically finished what she was doing before she turned back around, and even with extra time to prepare, she sucked in a breath at the sight of him. His hair was slick through with sweat, his left eye starting to swell closed, a spray of blood up his right arm.

"Yeah, well, the other town's a few miles out."

They hadn't found much on their run to town the other day, so he said they'd rest up then attempt one in the other direction. She hadn't thought he'd try it alone.

"You said you were scouting for game." She looked sharply at him. "Tyreese and I would have gone with you if we knew you were making a run all the way to town."

"I need help to handle a few walkers, now?"

She rolled her eyes, but subsided, because for as crude as he could be, Daryl was very private when it came to some things. So of course he'd rather risk a few dozen walkers alone than have Tyreese see him picking up items he needed in order to be intimate with her. She moved close to him and he went very still as she plucked the red rag from his back pocket. As she'd guessed, it was crusty with sweat and half dried blood he'd wiped off on his way home.

"If it was just a few walkers, why do you look like that?" She took the rag to the sink and rinsed it with water from the teapot, continuing to rinse and wring, rinse and wring until well after the water came out clear.

"More than a few. There's some little herds starting to group up out there. But look." He threw his pack on the table and when she turned around, his eyes were all lit up with excitement. She wanted to hug him, because he never looked like that. And she wanted to slug him in the stomach for risking his life for a few measly condoms. She was probably too old to get pregnant anyway. In a few more years, menopause would come along and make it official. But every time she thought about that, she thought about the way Daryl held little Judith and she wanted to scream the whole world down for being so damned unfair.

"A walker didn't do this." She brushed his hair out of his eye, touching the swelling.

He looked away, shrugged.

And that was all she'd be getting. But what did it matter? If he didn't bring them home, they weren't good people. If they weren't good people, and they'd done this to him, he'd most likely left them dead. It was a story she'd heard in enough variations that she didn't need to hear it again.

Instead, she softly wiped his face clean. He tolerated it for just a second before he grabbed the rag, scrubbing it down his bloody arm hard enough to make her wince. He nodded at the pack. "Open it."

"I've seen condoms before, Daryl. What, did you get French ticklers or something?"

He scowled and glanced toward the living room.

"Tyreese is out in the shed," she said in response to his unasked question. "Found a bunch of tools and old mowers out there. I think he's trying to make something out of them."

He stuffed the rag back in his pocket and she sighed, snatching it back out and tossing it to the sink so she could wash it again. He was starting to fidget, his eyes bouncing between her and the pack, so she pulled it toward her and opened the zipper.

She gasped. "You found arrows!"

"Not just arrows." He pulled out the fat bundle. "Extra aluminum shafts, extra tips, spare strings." He said it like some men said the name of God, with a breath of reverence.

"But aren't these a little long?"

"I can cut 'em down, make it work." He laid them aside, nodding toward the pack.

What was better than arrows? Unless it was self-regenerating food, she couldn't think of anything. The next item was a plastic shopping bag, carefully rolled. She frowned. If there were _herds_ of walkers and hostile humans, why would he take the time to individually bag anything? But when she opened it, her fingers immediately went to the soft fabric. A long sweater, with a cozy cowl neck. In a rich, cream-colored angora.

"Getting cold," Daryl said abruptly. She looked over at him, streaked with grime and smears of haphazardly wiped blood, then back to the spotless sweater. Folded beneath it was a tank top with a delicate edging of lace, then a soft Henley of the kind that was her favorite until a walker tore its sleeve off. Everything was just her size, and all in the mild, dreamy colors she liked best. How long had he spent combing through Walker-infested stores for these?

Clothing stores were the worst, because the racks of clothes hid walkers but provided no barrier at all once they found you. It's why they didn't scavenge for clothes until they were the next thing to naked.

She peeked up at him and smiled. She didn't need to say more. The corner of his mouth twitched once. Less like a smile than the hope of one, maybe someday.

"I'm gonna go out to the pump. Clean up some." He headed out without a word.

She unloaded the rest of the backpack. Food, some needles and thread, a new whetstone to replace one they'd had to leave behind. Two fresh pairs of socks and crammed tightly into one side pocket, two 12-packs of condoms. Both "ribbed for her pleasure." She sat down at the table and started to laugh, her shoulders shaking as she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes to keep the from stinging.

The world was such a bizarre, capricious place. How, in the midst of all this slaughter, had she ended up in a place so much better than anywhere she'd ever been?

#

When Daryl came back in, Carol was sitting at the table, her shoulders shaking. He stopped, his hand gripping the knob. She wasn't looking at the clothes he brought. Was she worried about the black eye, because he'd had to take a little kicking before he got the upper hand on those two guys holed up in the sporting goods store? Was she mad he'd got condoms without asking her first?

She looked up and she was smiling, though her eyes were wet. "C'mere."

He closed the door and came across the room, but she just took his hand and shouldered his pack, leading him upstairs. His pulse jolted. Now? Was she—He'd thought she'd want some time, maybe a few weeks or something to get used to the idea. He wasn't entirely sure _he_ was used to the idea.

"Tyreese is happy playing with his toys in the shed, and I know you don't like him overhearing us." She gave him a frank look that made his skin prickle all over like it wanted to be touched. "And I think I might get a little loud."

"Carol—"

He had no idea what he'd meant to say. But she turned around on the stairs and nailed him with her eyes. "You could have died today." She touched the shoulder of his vest, where new toothmarks were imprinted in the thick leather. She cupped his face, not touching his new black eye, but staring at it. "I tried to give you time, Daryl, back at the prison. But this world doesn't hardly have any time left in it. So if you're not ready, you're just going to have to get ready because I want to be with you before I die. At least once, I want to be with a man who brings me _sweaters_ because he doesn't want me to be cold." Her voice cracked.

She was a step above him, but he put a hand on her back, pulling her in close and resting his head against her breastbone, listening to her heart for a second. She clutched at his head, hanging onto his neck. It was sore from the punching he'd taken earlier, but he didn't move because it seemed like it was making her feel better.

He was glad she liked the sweater. He wished it hadn't made her cry.

She ducked her head and kissed him. All salty with tears and fierce, like she was needing something he wasn't sure he was giving her. His lips were thin, clumsy. Ragged because he chewed them when he wasn't paying attention. Probably not made for kissing. Carol didn't seem to notice, though, pressing her mouth to his slower and softer, like it was calming her down.

He'd have stayed, kissing her on the stairs, for a clean decade or two, but she pulled him upstairs and into the room they'd started sharing.

Once since they'd been staying at this farmhouse, he'd tried going to bed in the room down the hall. When she came looking for him, he told her she ought to have a room with a door she could close if she didn't want company. That made her cry, too, though she tried to hide it by smacking him in the arm and saying that she didn't need a door when she could say in plain old words when she didn't want company.

He didn't know how he kept making her cry all the time when he was trying the hardest of his life to be nice.

She shut the door, dropped his pack, and slipped his vest off his shoulders. She handled it like it wasn't just clothes, her hands careful and kind of happy-like. He stirred in his pants, watching her hands smoothing over his vest. He didn't understand why, just like he didn't understand the way it heated his blood when she picked up his crossbow. She was casual and utterly at home with the weapon, even when she was just moving it from the table to the floor.

She came back, starting to unbutton his shirt. It was ripped in a few places, and he'd torn the sleeves off this summer when he got hot, but a frisson of panic shot through him at the idea of taking it off here in front of her in broad daylight.

He caught her hand. "Why do I need'a take that off? We didn't last time. Here." He started unbuttoning her shirt instead.

She let him, standing more passively than she usually did. His hands slowed on her buttons, not sure if that meant she wanted him to stop.

"Go on," she said, very quietly.

He opened more buttons, gentle with them. Silent, as if that would make a difference. He revealed her bra, blotted with old, dark red stains, and it felt like something he wasn't allowed to see, despite the heave of soft breasts beneath that told him her breathing had picked up at the thought of him looking. He opened buttons over her tight, hollowed stomach, streaked with silvery stretch marks from carrying Sophia, like runs in a too-delicate set of stockings.

He tried to swallow and couldn't. Water dripped down his ears from his hair, still wet from the pump, and he was still too hot.

Carol slipped out of the shirt and dropped it to the floor, turning her back to him. She was skinny, nothing left on her to cushion the grace in her shoulders, the strength in the way she held her head. He reached out to touch the nape of her neck, not sure why he did it except that it was pretty. But as he did it, he saw the rest.

The rips of scars across her shoulder blades, her lower back. That long, interrupted straight line of a belt cut, only the deepest places scarring over but the rest there all the same.

He pulled her into his chest, hiding the marks because he knew how naked it made you feel to have somebody looking at them. He tucked his head hard against her shoulder.

"You didn't pull up the sheet fast enough," she said calmly. "Back at Hershel's farm, when you got all shot up looking for Sophia."

She'd known. All along she'd known. His skin crawled, thinking about all the times she'd looked at him, knowing he'd been somebody's bitch once. Bunch a times, really.

His weren't the pretty kind of scars, not all jagged and tough looking like you could show to chicks. There were bright red pock marks across his shoulders where his father had put out cigarettes, back when he was little and scared and thought his house was safer than the dark woods at night. They looked like big zits, marks of how he hadn't fought back, hadn't even been brave enough to run. And long, jaggedy cuts from the belt, the scar tissue thick because he hadn't been able to reach to wash 'em out and they got red and weeping before they finally healed over all lumpy and fucked up.

Even Merle got sick, looking at 'em, and he wasn't exactly the squeamish type.

Carol reached back, her hand laying on his head where it was still tucked in tight to her neck. "I know all about feeling ugly," she said softly.

"You ain't _never_ been ugly." The words came out so strong they shook his grip on her.

She turned to face him again, kindness in her eyes and that damn bloodstained bra he knew she wouldn't show in front of anybody else.

He pressed his mouth to hers, and maybe it wasn't no movie kiss, but nobody in Hollywood had seen the things they'd seen together. Hadn't crouched in the mud together, burned cowshit to stay warm and laughed at the smell. Hadn't been ugly together.

Even just her face against his palms felt small and delicate and like he would break every damn thing in the world all over again just to feel that. He broke the kiss and pressed his cheek against her temple, his hand rubbing down her back to cover the worst of her scars. He could feel the ridges against his fingertips.

He remembered how she sobbed when she bashed in her dead husband's head with a pickaxe. Remembered how repulsed and horrified and sad and angry she'd been. He'd been right there, ready to do the job and not lose any sleep about it, and she took the pick right out of his hands. Even then when she was scared of everything and everybody. Carol wasn't nobody's bitch, even back then.

He yanked at his shirt, ripping the sun-faded fabric around the buttons. Didn't matter, thing wasn't worth nothin'. He dropped it on the floor and started to turn and Carol caught his arm. "I've seen you," she said, and he stiffened as he remembered. "And that isn't the part that matters to me."

She pulled him closer, her hand slipping up over the side where he'd tattooed demons, in one of his darker moods. She had seen, then. Seen enough to remember what was where. Her other hand came around to rub the thickest scar, in the small of his back. They were all across his chest, too, but the worst ones were on his back because those were the ones that rained down when he was already beaten. Curled against the pain and just wishing it'd be over, someday.

"You've got scars from Sophia, too," she said. "Because nothing on this earth was going to stop you from saving my daughter. Not even getting shot in the head." She smiled. "Sometimes, I don't know if you're tough or just crazy, Dixon, but I like you this way." She reached around and goosed his butt, the way she did when she was trying to wring a laugh out of him.

He huffed a chuckle out through his nose without meaning to. "Dumb, most like."

She kissed his chest and he stopped breathing. It made something waver in his gut, feeling her lips like that. A kiss on his _body_ was just…

"Do that again," he whispered.

She laughed, but he didn't.

"Please." It was almost a grunt, the word came out so fast, but she smiled as she kissed the other side of his chest, then a little scar beneath his nipple he hadn't even remembered he had.

She pulled him over to the bed, sort of laid him down. "You know why I like getting you in bed?"

It was the perfect setup for a joke, one of the dirty ones she tossed off without even a second to think, like she was so smart her brain didn't need no time to process. But he couldn't think of a single answer, honest or sarcastic, so he just shook his head.

"Because every time I touch you, you act like it's the first time it's ever happened." She scooted down and kissed his stomach, and it jumped a little under the touch. "Like it's the best time it's ever happened."

He simply nodded.

Tears jumped to her eyes and she pushed up over him.

"Dammit, stop being so sweet today. I can't take it," she said. "And fuck me already, would you?"

"Okay."

She giggled at that, and he undressed them both the rest of the way, moving fast so he wouldn't think too much about if he was doing it the wrong way.

"Put your hand over my clit," she said. "Just hold it there."

He blinked, his mind racing. Guys back home had a million words for pussy. He'd never heard that one. There was no way in hell he was asking, but how many places could she be talking about? He laid his hand between her legs, but it was too late, because Carol didn't miss nothing.

"This," she said, and brought his fingers to that hard little knot hidden by the thickest part of the curls between his legs.

"There's words for that?"

"Sure. Words for most things." She took his fingers and stroked them down, where she was starting to get wet. "Labia." She took him further down, pressing just the tips of his fingers to the entrance of her. His dick swelled and he tried to keep his breathing cool, even. "Vagina."

"Funny words," he muttered. He'd heard those, maybe back in school or something, but they didn't sound right.

She laughed, a little breathlessly. "Yeah."

He moved, experimentally. Rubbing real slow and soft, listening to all the ways it changed her breathing. It was just like hunting, really. Noticing things. Figuring out what they meant. Knowing where to aim.

Her fingers started to tremble and eventually fell away, like she forgot she was showing him what to do. Her head moved restlessly on the pillow, then with a little half-moan she opened her eyes, flailing an arm off the bed. "Where the hell are those condoms?"

He let out a breath of a laugh, smiling a little shyly.

"It's not funny," she said, coming up with a box and yanking at the plastic. "If you don't fuck me before Tyreese comes back in from the shed, I'm going to kill him myself."

He took the box from her, punching through the plastic with one strong finger. "Stop saying that."

"What, fuck?" She nuzzled her face into his neck. "Don't like it when I talk dirty?"

He pulled out a condom and flicked the rest of the box on the floor. "Not that kind of dirty."

"What'd you call it, then?" She rolled up to straddle his hips, totally comfortable being naked with him, and he got distracted and forgot what he was trying to do.

He shrugged. "Makes you sound like just another girl. Some slut."

She snatched the condom out of his hands and ripped it with her teeth. "You give me a second here, Dixon, and I'll show you all about how slutty I can be."

He reached for the condom. "I can do it."

She bobbed her eyebrows. "Sure, but it's more fun if I do it."

She reached down and took hold of him and he half-yelped, forgetting all about arguing. His eyes fell shut as her hand worked him. Christ, this felt better than anything since the end of the world.

Before, too.

Her thumb flicked over a sensitive spot under the head of his cock he hadn't even known was there. Then again, maybe it only felt like that for a woman's hand, all confident and sweet all at once.

He opened his eyes so he could watch her, because every one of her movements said she loved what she was doing. He wouldn't have thought, with her pudgy, grouchy old husband, that she'd like sex so much.

She slicked the condom down onto him and he twitched, lengthening in her hands. A tide of something big rolled up his chest. This was really happening. With her.

He grabbed her shoulders and moved her, less gracefully than he intended, onto the bed beneath him.

"What?" she asked, a little confused.

"I gotta do it," he said. "Least the first time." No matter how much more practiced she seemed to be at all this, he was taking his woman. It was for him to do, not her.

She hitched her thigh up over his hip and he found her opening. _Vagina._ He gritted his teeth, cock in hand as he grappled for control. Stupid, ugly word for something that felt so soft and yielding, like everything about Carol. Strong as all hell but mellow, because she made everything around feel a little easier.

Even her hands on his bare back felt okay, good. Her hands didn't linger on his scars, but they didn't avoid them, either. She just kept holding on to him like she wanted him there.

He pushed inside, his thoughts all a ragged mess. He tried to remember what she'd taught him when he was just using his fingers. Slow and smooth at first, then fast at the end. It felt so good, every inch. He wanted to know if it felt that good to her, but he'd probably look like a dumbass if she knew he had to ask. He pushed in, pulled all the way out a few times. Slow, like she had said she liked it. The whole time, he couldn't stop thinking about that sexy little squeeze she gave his fingers last time. But she wasn't doing it again.

"Carol."

Her eyes came open and he'd never seen that look on her face before. Somewhere between happy and dazed, but tense, too. Like she didn't quite know how to manage a feeling. He understood that right now. Real damn well.

"Hmm?"

"Can you do that thing? Where you ah…kinda squeeze, you know?"

She smiled and flexed around him. A little, then in a ripple all the way from the base to the tip of him. He groaned and felt that pressure start up at the base of him. "Don't don't don't. Never mind. Quit, okay?"

"It's okay if it's quick, this time." She hugged him closer. "It's not the only time we get, Daryl."

"Shit," he said, because it wasn't getting better. The longer he was inside her, even not moving, the closer he came to the edge. Her arms around him made it worse. Made something quaver in him, and hurt, a little. It felt weird, out of control like he needed to yell or hit something. Or come.

"It's okay," she whispered.

He was starting to quake now, in his arms and into his shoulders and down his back. His leg muscles bunched with the need to thrust. "Is it okay if I do it fast?" he gritted out.

"Yes," she said.

"It's not gonna hurt you?" Sweat broke out on his forehead and she wrapped her legs around his hips, her hand flat and soothing on his back.

"I promise," she said.

Once he moved, he lost it. He hammered into her, too fast and way too hard because he wanted this for too long and now that he was here, it was exploding inside his brain. She was so wet and there was no resistance, just the clasp of her around his dick as she gasped and strained a little closer.

He blew without warning, so hard his brain went light and funny like he might pass out. He didn't mean to, but he grabbed her, yanking her off the bed and locking her into his arms as all his muscles convulsed. His face dug hard into her neck as he panted, the blackness something he needed because this was too much. Shit, he'd had sex and yeah, it'd been a while but it never stripped him down like this. He didn't know how to deal with this shit.

The soft, dark curve of her neck helped, but then he realized the little sound he heard was coming from his mouth—a whimper, almost, or something small and unsteady. He clamped his teeth closed and shut the fuck up, pulling breath in through his nose instead, because that seemed safer.

Belatedly, he remembered to loosen his grip. He was strong enough to crush a walker's skull, which was plenty strong enough to bruise a slim little thing like Carol, and he knew she'd never complain if she thought it'd embarrass him.

There was a little pressure against his head, and he realized she'd kissed his hair, like she did to the kids.

He pulled away, embarrassed. "You hurt?"

He didn't look at her, not really, but his peripheral vision was good enough to see the quiet little smile on her face. She put her hand against his cheek. "You didn't hurt me, Daryl."

That made that weird twisty thing happen in his chest again.

He shook her off and pulled out, but he forgot to hold onto the condom and so that took some fumbling and made kind of a mess. Finally he got it in a trash can by the bed and yanked his pants back on, shoving his dick in without wiping it off. Zipped his pants and threw on his ripped shirt. He blasted across the room before he realized he'd ran out of steps and had to turn around. He needed a bigger space, something to hit or kill or squeeze into pieces, but even he knew if you walked out on a woman after sex, that made you an asshole.

He should say somethin'. Something nice, to Carol, so she'd feel okay.

He stopped in the center of the room, risking a glance up at her with his hands twitching at his sides, wishing for a knife hilt or a shovel. A tool to tell him what he ought to be doing with his hands right now.

She had tugged the sheet up, but it only covered one of her breasts and she didn't seem concerned.

"Little too close?" she asked, and her face was kind, relaxed. She didn't look surprised.

His shoulders dropped and he looked at the floor, looked at her. A rueful touch of a smile hinting at his face. "Yeah, maybe."

"Go," she said, nodding toward the door. "Work it off, if you need to."

"I need to—" He pointed to her, his free hand scraping through his hair.

She smiled. "No, you don't. I'm good, Daryl. Go on."

He grabbed his crossbow from by the door. "I'll just get us some dinner or something. Won't be long."

"That would be nice."

He looked down at the doorknob. Was this what Glenn would do? Probably not. He'd probably stay, kiss on Maggie for a while if they had nowhere to be. Say something sweet.

Daryl didn't know anything sweet to say.

He turned and came back across the room with long, silent strides. Ducked low enough to kiss Carol's cheek. Except he was moving too fast as he came in and he kind of shoved her face away, he kissed her so hard. It was awkward but he'd already stood back up before he realized it hadn't quite gone as he planned, and then it was too late.

He whipped back toward the door, but not before he caught a flash of warm blue eyes, and a pink, happy flush on her cheeks. Sex looked good on Carol.

He cranked the doorknob this time before he could think better of it.

"Daryl," she called.

He turned back, thinking she might want him to do a chore or something before he left.

"I liked it," she said. "I can see all those wheels cranking away inside your head, so before you go…" She grinned. "I liked it a lot, okay?"

He nodded, his gaze dropping to the floor again because he didn't quite know how to look at a smile that was aimed straight at him like that. He closed the door behind him, making sure the latch caught so she was safe inside.

He jogged down the stairs, his individual steps fast enough that they flowed together like the drum of rain. He checked the windows out two sides of the house before he went out the door. The forest beckoned from beyond their makeshift fence, but he paused, looking up at the window where he'd left Carol.

He wanted to be back up there, in that room with just him and her. But he didn't know what to do. What to say, how to touch her. He wanted, with a sudden sharpness, to be a certain kind of man to her.

Not just the guy she'd shout for if she got scared. Not the one she'd turn to if they were low on food. He wanted to…soothe her. To be the one she smiled and laughed for. But he didn't know how.

So he turned and loped into the woods, his gaze falling to read the language of the forest floor.

* * *

 _Author's Note: Stick around, because the next chapter is Daryl trying to figure out how to make Carol happy. Which is, as one might guess, awkward, ridiculous, and completely adorable._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Daryl was stringing wire, wrapping it hard between fence posts. He needed to think, and his brain bound all up when his hands weren't busy. 'Sides, they needed a better fence than the single tripwire they'd had. He didn't know how long they'd be at this farmhouse, but even a night or two was better with a fence, and there was plenty of wire in the shed.

Thing about Carol was, if he really needed something, he could ask her and she wouldn't laugh. Like that day when Rick and Lori kept talking about B.A.'s and he couldn't puzzle out from the sentences what the hell the thing could be. Or when Carol showed him all the names of the secret parts of her body, or how she liked him to use his fingers on her.

But now he needed to know something a lot more complicated.

He needed to know how to make her happy.

There was no one else to ask. He was damn near desperate enough to ask Glenn, if the guy had still been around. Better humiliate himself in front of the other man so he could at least look like he knew what he was doing when he was with Carol. Besides, if Glenn laughed, he could just punch him until he stopped.

He wrapped the wire around the fencepost, cursing when he caught a chunk of his skin on one of the barbs.

 _You got to stay who you are. Not who you were._

Beth was in his head now, her words stuck there good. He looked for signs of that black car that took her, every time he went out. Found nothing. But he remembered every word she said to him. The nice ones, and the rude ones. She thought he was something other than that dog-mean kid tagging along after Merle. The man he was without his brother, the man he wanted to be, was a lot more like Rick or Glenn. But he was neither of them, and he had to figure out where he wanted to fall.

He kicked the post, just to make sure it was solid, but he'd dug it nice and deep. It was a good post. They never had a fence, back when they was kids. Nothing worth keeping anybody else out of. He'd learned how to build a fence himself, from watching how it broke when the walkers knocked it down.

Back at the prison, he used to know when Glenn and Maggie were fighting, because they wouldn't talk. And when they made up, he knew it because he'd hear quiet little voices coming from her room. Then nothing, because they were back out in the guard tower, and the next morning they were all smiles over breakfast. But talking came first.

He wasn't good at talking.

He stared into the forest and whipped the rag out of his pocket to rub sweat off his forehead. He was good at manning up, though. Doing what needed to be done.

He wanted to be the kind of man Carol wanted to spend time with. In the living room, not just the bedroom and the forest. And if he had to look like a dumbass for a minute or two to get there, well, it wouldn't be the first time.

He let himself back into the house. Carol sat on the living room floor, sewing on a scavenged pair of pants, Tyreese sitting beside her doing a crap ass job of cleaning their guns.

"Get out," Daryl grunted.

Tyreese looked up and started to scowl, then his eyes flickered back down and he shoved the guns away and got up.

Carol sighed. "We just need a minute to talk, Tyreese. I'm sorry, do you mind?"

He gestured to Daryl. "He could have asked, same as you just did." He stared at Daryl. "I'm not some kid or servant for you to order around."

Daryl stared back.

Tyreese shook his head and stomped outside, slamming the door behind him.

Carol kept sewing, sending him a reproachful look over the top. "I know you've got more manners than that. It wouldn't cost you anything to use them."

"Cost me time and energy he ain't worth." Guy'd be dead soon anyway. Carol basically kept him alive like a baby every time they left the house together. She practically had to hold his hand to cross the street.

"Spit it out," she said, still sewing.

"What?"

"You've been working up to something for days." She held up the pants to better catch the light from the window. "Get any twitchier and poor Tyreese is going to get an ulcer. So spit it out. You wouldn't be in here if you weren't ready to talk about it."

"Don't laugh," he warned.

She smiled. "Oh, this is going to be good."

He headed for the door.

"Simmer down, Pookie," she called after him. "If you wanted a partner without a sense of humor, you could have kissed Oscar. You two would have had a beautiful, very silent relationship."

He looked back. "You ain't half as funny as you think you are."

"That makes me twice as funny as anybody else around." She smiled and patted the floor next to her. "Silver lining to the apocalypse."

His lips twitched.

"See?" she said sunnily. "You're already feeling better. Sit down close enough I can get grabby with you and you'll feel even better."

He slung himself down on the floor next to her, knees propped up and arms hitched over them, his foot already jiggling up and down to bounce his hands. He spit it out quick, because that's how you get your ass to jump off a cliff when it's a long long way down to the lake and you don't want to look like a pussy in front of your big brother's friends.

"I need you to tell me what to do." He jerked at a stray thread on his pants and it tore a new, jagged hole in the worn fabric. "And it's about the only time I'm gonna ask, so enjoy it all you want to."

She made another tiny, precise stitch and he realized she was lengthening out the hem of the pants. For him?

"What to do with what?"

"With you, with us. This whole…" He shoved his knees down, sat up cross-legged, pushed his weight back against the recliner he was leaning against. "Relationship thing. My parents…they didn't exactly have that all sorted out. And the rest of my family…" He huffed out a breath. "It don't run in my blood."

He wanted to be better than his blood. When people said "Dixon" at the prison, they didn't say it like they needed to spit the taste out of their mouths. Leastways, not until they met Merle.

Carol set aside her sewing and leaned back against the chair, her on the front, him on the side. "It isn't about what you need to do. It's about what you need to stop doing."

"What?" Shit, how many ways had he upset her without him even knowing?

"I told you, remember? All I need is for you to stop bracing like I'm just looking for an excuse to laugh at you. To hurt you."

She let out a breath, sounding a little frustrated. She scooted around so she was facing him.

"Daryl, I don't see how you can know I care about you and still think I would want to—" She stopped. "Yes. Yes, I do," she said, and pressed her lips together. "I can see why you'd think that." She looked back at him. "But I'm not Merle. And I'm not…whoever else treated you like shit, before."

She hooked a finger in the armhole of his vest, inside the sleeveless shirt beneath, just letting that one finger play against the bare skin of his chest.

"When you relax, I like you just fine. You don't need to learn how to act like someone else. I just need you to stop bracing and just be you, Daryl."

He looked at her. Not dead on. Just quick little flicks of his eyes between her face and the ground, because that was as much as he could handle. "Okay."

"Yeah?" She waited, but he wasn't sure what for. "Is that what you wanted to ask me?" she said finally. "I can't tell if you got what you came for, because you're still all stiff."

"Yeah, I guess."

He tried to puzzle it out, but the two things didn't connect. He wanted to be the kind of guy she came to in order feel better, and she was saying just to be himself. But when he was being himself, it was mostly when he was doing stuff. Whittling or fixing the bike or gutting a deer. None of those things were things he did with Carol. But she'd sounded so certain, before, he didn't have the words to explain which part of that didn't fit, for him.

"Like…" He scratched the back of his neck. "How, though?"

She smiled, and it lit up her whole face. She reminded him of a stained glass window, sometimes. In the church he'd only been to when he was small enough his mom had to hold his hand as they walked in. All made of light, the picture of her only coming clearer the brighter it got.

She pursed her lips and shook her head. "I can show you, but you're not going to like it."

He stiffened. "Come on, what?" He was the one everyone called for the dirty work, for the stuff nobody else had the sack to do. What was it Carol thought would make him squirm?

"You sure?" she asked dubiously.

"Yeah, what?" He stood up, anxious to get going on whatever it was and stop hanging around talking about it.

She sighed. "You trust me, right?"

"Yeah," he said, though he'd been more certain of that a minute ago.

She stood up, too, and cocked her head toward something in the house behind her. "Come here."

He started that direction, but when he passed her, she held out a hand to stop him. He looked over, confused. She drew him back in front of her, and then, gently, into her arms.

She laid her head on his shoulder and relaxed into his chest. "A little more of this might be nice," she whispered.

Hugging? Yeah, he guessed he could see that. Back at the prison, she was always hugging the kids, patting them on the shoulders or the back. Of course she'd want someone to do that for her, too. He was stupid not to have figured that out on his own.

He put his arms around her, but they felt too low, so he moved them up. That didn't feel right, either, so he squirmed them out from under hers and wrapped them over her shoulders. But then her head was buried between his neck and his arms and he worried she couldn't breathe.

She started to shake against him, laughing quietly, and he scowled and pushed her off. "You were the one that asked. Shit, Carol. Told you I'm no good at that stuff."

"You are." She stepped back, smiling, and wrapped her sweater a little closer around her. The one he'd found her at a store in town. He'd had to hold it up over his head as he stomped the jaw out of a walker so he wouldn't get blood on the sweater, but it had been worth it because he brought it back clean.

He realized then that she was smiling. She smiled a lot these days. He was pretty sure she was laughing because he fucked up her whole hug experiment, but she wasn't looking at him like he was dumb. She was looking at him like she liked him.

"Said you wouldn't laugh," he warned.

"Well, I didn't know you were going to be so damned cute, did I?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, cute. That's me."

She burst out laughing and he threw out an arm and hauled her into his chest, exasperated. It was quick, and hard, and he ducked his head quick so nobody watching would have seen the little kiss he dropped on her forehead. He'd seen her do that to the little kids, so he thought she might like it, too. Then he stepped back, just as fast.

"I got to go. All this talking and shit's not going to get the rest of the fence up before dark."

She was looking at him oddly, though. Not smiling anymore, and she looked a little off-balance. Her hand fluttered up to her throat and she swallowed.

He looked behind himself for danger, but there was nothing but sunlight through dusty windows and a solidly closed front door.

"That was, um—" She pointed at him, as if that would clear something up. Her eyes sparkled with abrupt tears.

"What?" he asked, increasingly alarmed. "What'd I do?"

"I just…didn't realize you already knew how to hug." She smoothed a hand over the strap of his crossbow where it crossed his shoulder. "Just keep being you, Daryl," she said. "It's working just fine."

* * *

 _Author's Note: Only one more chapter of this one, guys! *sniffles* I've enjoyed getting to know the people in this fandom so much! I just put out a couple of one-shots, I've got another one that will come out soon from the Alexandria times, and as soon as this story wraps, I'm going to start posting a longer, slow-burn Caryl friendship to romance story that I've been working on. I'm really excited for that one. It has a lot of funny/cute little scene setups that I enjoyed writing. Thanks so much for your reviews and support!_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Carol knew something was different by the way he came in the door, even before he said her name.

" _Carol_."

She immediately looked out the kitchen window, because that tone meant something was happening. But there wasn't a walker in sight.

Daryl crossed the room, all the air thickening with the buzz of excitement coming off him. "I found Rick's trail today. He's hurt, limping. Tracks maybe only two days old. At that pace, we can catch 'em by tomorrow afternoon."

 _Rick._ She swallowed. "How do you know it's him? I mean, if he's moving differently, wouldn't he make different tracks?"

He looked a little annoyed. "I know his boot tread. And he's with Carl."

Carol wiped her already-dry hands, not sure why she was so irritated. She took a breath and an extra minute to keep her tone steady. When she snapped, Daryl snapped back harder, and then stormed out. If he wanted to leave now, they didn't have time for him to cool off after an argument. "Are you sure it's a good idea to try to meet back up with him? Rick's a good man, but…things are different now."

Daryl sat back a little, his weight going into his heels.

She held up her hands before he could get defensive. "I'm only saying, he's not going to want me with the group and it's going to be an ugly argument. Are you sure it's worth getting into that?"

"He'll let you back. Hell, Merle tried to kill him and he took him back just so's I could come back, too." Daryl swallowed, his weight fidgeting forward and back like he was just barely keeping himself from pacing.

She sank into a chair. It was the most anyone had ever done for him, she suspected. None of her words and none of her touches could come close to that, because he was so uncertain about the emotions behind them. But Daryl knew how much the group hated Merle. And that they—that _Rick_ —wanted him back more than they feared Merle…well, to Daryl, that was simple math. Maybe the only gesture of approval he couldn't brush off or discount.

She looked up at him, lost for words. She couldn't compete with that and yet she knew he wouldn't leave her behind. The two competing imperatives would just hit the wall that was Daryl's loyalty and God only knew what would happen because he wouldn't bend until all of them broke.

"He'll take us," Daryl said, dead certain. And she loved him all the more for that 'us'. "He'd never leave me behind. He _hated_ Merle, and he's never hated you. He's just so used to doing the right thing even when he doesn't like it, that he doesn't know when it's okay to give a little." He stopped, sucking in his top lip and biting at it, the way he did when he was nervous. "Rick and me saved each other's life a hundred times, out there. You get used to having somebody at your back and then—" He broke off, twitching. Looking a little lost, and it broke her heart.

"I know. I understand that. But Daryl—it's not the group we're going back to. It's just a wounded man who told me I was never allowed to come back."

He grabbed the table next to her, leaning in fast like he did when he forgot to be careful around her. She didn't flinch, though, because she was getting used to how all his motions speeded up when he upset.

"There's no group now," he said. "But with Rick there, one'll get started soon enough."

He dropped to squat in front of her, and he grabbed her knees and squeezed hard enough to leave bruises. He dropped his forehead to her lap, and her eyes went wide at the raw show of emotion.

She laid a hand on the back of his neck, not sure what was going through his head. More than a little afraid of what it might be.

After a long moment, he looked up, eyes dead steady on hers, which threw her off balance. Daryl never looked at anything but danger straight on. Everything else made him a little skittish.

"If we go to Rick, there'll be a group. Sooner or later, there'll be a place. If we stay like we are, Tyreese'll get killed off sooner or later and me and you—" He shook his head. "I can feed us, you and me can handle the walkers, but we'd always be moving. I'm not good at building things up. Makin' people trust us and want to stay and help. You oughta have more than just the road." He threw out a hand. "More than some stupid stolen house, couple cans o' food."

When he would have pushed back to his feet, she caught his hands, held them.

Hung her head because all the different parts of him were tugging so strongly at her she didn't know which way to go. He was right and so _so_ wrong and even while he was admitting he couldn't be everything she needed, he was perfect.

She couldn't keep him safe alone.

She rubbed her thumbs over his hands, careful of his perpetually tattered knuckles. "Okay," she whispered, then cleared her throat and lifted her head. "Let's find Rick. Let's find us a home."

His eyes flared a little, then narrowed in keen focus, and she could tell he hadn't been thinking of that. Hadn't been thinking of himself and the home he'd really been searching for when he was looking so hard for her lost daughter. Which is why she was going to give him that home, no matter what she had to carve it out of.

She dropped her head and kissed his forehead. She hung onto his hands to give her courage in the last moments before she had to pack her things and face the man who exiled her because he knew she was a murderer.

"I love you," she said hoarsely. "And one of these days, Daryl Dixon, you're going to have to get used to it. You claimed me, remember?"

His head came up, lines of stress wracking his face even as relief softened his thin mouth. "More like you claimed me."

* * *

 _Author's Note: Thank you, all of you who read this story, so much. If you liked it, I just started a new, longer Caryl story today called, "How Carol Got Her Groove Back." It's set between Season 2 and 3, about how their friendship developed and changed both of them in that first long winter. And it might just shade out of canon and into romance by the end, if there's interest._


End file.
